Media devices, such as cellular telephones, computers, and video playback devices capable of playing back video clips, may utilize media players for playing media recordings such as video clips. Examples of such media players include QuickTime Player, Photo Booth, iPhoto, Aperture, iTunes, and Quick Look, all of which are sold by Apple, Inc. Media players are often configured to provide a window having two main sections, a video frame in which video content is displayed, and a scrub bar which illustrates the progress of the current playback point from a start of the video clip to an end of the video clip using a playhead.
The scrub bar represents a timeline of the video clip being played back. A play/pause button is also provided adjacent the scrub bar (or can be omitted in favor of an alternative method of starting video playback, such as clicking the video frame). For example, while many media player elements may be controlled by a mouse cursor, others may allow for control via touch-screen interfaces, gesture interpreters, hand-held controllers, or the like. The scrub bar usually has an elongate line representing a time period from the start of the video clip to the end of the video clip, over which is provided a progress marker denoting the position along that line of the current playback position. One end of the scrub bar represents the beginning of the video clip and the other end of the scrub bar represents the end of the video clip. The playhead is provided as a progress marker to illustrate the current playback point along the timeline and the degree of progress through the duration of the video clip currently being played back. The playhead may be selected and moved forwards and backwards along the scrub bar. When the playhead is released, the media begins playing at that point of the media recording.
When the mouse cursor hovers over the scrub bar, the media player often displays a pop-up window to present a preview frame representing the portion of the video clip corresponding to the current cursor position. The preview frame of the video clip can generally be displayed as the cursor is positioned over any point on the scrub bar. Manual searching for a specific location in a video clip is performed by “scrubbing” (e.g., by clicking and dragging to move a mouse cursor along the timeline associated with the video), and repositioning the cursor.